Film-maker Speaks About Ending Abortion Immediately

The Setting at Knox Street and the Call to Courage

It's interesting, the street on this, where this particular building's at, I've never been to this building before, is Knox Street. An interesting feature and facet of the ideas that have been expressed here in relationship to what God's Word says in relationship to our unborn neighbor.

Sometimes these are bold words that need to be heard. We need to be fundamentally courageous as we go forth. And again, we're here at the event, it's End Abortion Now, and we have another speaker. His name is Marcus Pittman.

He's filmmaker and producer, director for Apologia Studios. Marcus Pittman is the director of the pro-life movie, Babies Are Murdered Here, which has been seen nearly 100 ,000 times on YouTube. The movie's call to action was so successful, it forced Planned Parenthood to create a marketing campaign called Health Care Happens Here.

As a response, he now is the producer and director for Apologia Studios, including Apologia TV, which can be seen on the NRB network. Marcus? So I get to talk to you guys, not as an elder, not as a pastor, not as a legislator or a theologian.

Filmmaking as Storytelling in the Abortion Debate

I get to talk to you about a filmmaker. And what a filmmaker does is we tell stories. Now, you're probably wondering, why is it at a political event like this, I'm talking about telling stories? Well, it's because the pro-life movement has failed to tell the story.

For the past 43 years, they've given in to the stories of the pro-choice movement. They've let their narrative, they've let their conversation control how people view abortion in this country. And that's unacceptable.

The Bible says in Proverbs 18, 21, that death and life are in the power of the tongue. As a filmmaker, I get to tell stories. And I can tell stories of life, or I can tell stories of death. And so I decided to make one that kind of talked about both.

And it was called Babies Are Murdered Here. The movie, as he said, has got nearly 100 ,000 views on YouTube. We put it up for free. And it happened sort of by accident. Several years ago, a friend calls me up.

He's planting a church in Syracuse, New York, and he says, hey, I want you to come and make a video about my church plant in Syracuse. Can you come? And I was like, sure. So I get on the plane, I show up, and he says, well, I've got bad news.

You're supposed to get a plane ticket Sunday at 8 p .m., but I accidentally made it Sunday at 8 a .m., so you're going to go home before church starts. So there was no church plant to make. So I said, well, is there anything we can film, anything you want to do that we can go out and film?

The Origin of Babies Are Murdered Here

And he says, well, there's this abortion clinic that puts on their website that there's no protesters, there's nobody standing up for life out there, and they use that as a marketing ploy to get people to come in, so we're going to go show up for the first time that this clinic's ever had.

And I was like, well, sounds like a great story. So a friend of mine by the name of Robert Gray went to the dollar store that night, and he got a dollar piece of cardboard, and he got a dollar pack of markers, red and black, and he sat at the table, and he made that sign right there.

And we didn't really know what he was doing, and he walks in the room, and he brings in this sign, and we were just speechless. I don't know if it's the way the letters are written like a kid wrote it, or the red letters for murdered, but something really spoke out.

That sign tells a story, and it tells a story that nobody is saying. Nobody was standing outside with signs that said what was happening in there. Babies are murdered here. And so, as we were filming, Robert stood outside on that cold day with that sign, and I thought, I think there's a movie here.

And I didn't know how to pay for it. I didn't have any money, so I essentially put up on Facebook a trailer composed with footage from here and a few friends from home, and it went nuts. Now, there's no movie yet.

It's just a trailer, and I wanted to make a movie that was about the people who go outside and stand up for life outside these clinics, but immediately, it occurred to me that there's another movie that's happening, because people all over the country started taking the sign from a movie trailer that didn't even exist, and they started to hold up signs that said babies are murdered here.

Changing the Conversation in the Pro-Life Movement

We started to control the story for the first time in 43 years. For the first time, the pro-life movement controlled the conversation, and we controlled how people viewed Planned Parenthood, and in this election cycle, we heard questions asked that haven't been asked in other election cycles.

Do you think abortion is murder? Those were questions asked at presidential debates, and they haven't been asked in 43 years, but we changed the conversation, and people all over the country started to get involved.

I used to think that people who secured abortions were misled, that they were lied to, that they didn't know, and it's certainly conceivable, though unlikely, but it's conceivable that 40 years ago, at the dawn of Roe v. Wade, that there were people who really did buy into this massive tissue argument.

But that argument, friends, has been dead for 20 years. Everyone knows it's a baby. It's now being admitted that it's a baby, even by those who are pro-choice, publicly in print admitted, we know it's a baby, but we still ought to be able to kill it.

That's, ironically, some welcome honesty, but if you go to the mill and you talk to these women who are on their way in that door, you don't have to wait for these articles where people are coming out.

They knew, when you speak to them, they know what they're doing. Their response, even among those who profess to be Christians, is not, it's just tissue. It's not, it's no big deal. It's, I can be forgiven, I have the right, I know I'm killing my baby.

We all know, they know, which means that this misguided, poor, innocent, pregnant girl is a myth. This is a heartless woman, who may indeed find herself in a difficult bind, and whose solution is to murder the baby.

A little cost assessment?

You mean there are babies in there? Yes. Why don't you do something better with your time than protest stupid s**t? To cry out for the baby. Why not that? To cry out for the baby. Do some f**king community service with some stupid s**t.

You're dumb a**.

You're all f**king stupid as s**t. We're here to speak up for them, ma 'am. It ain't the first one I don't kill, it's gonna be the f**king last. Let them, let them line up. We'll send you.

Line up. There's only one word for abortion, it's murder. Abortion, in every instance, is the premeditated taking of an innocent human being's life with malice or forethought.

How did we not tell that story for 43 years? How did we give in to Planned Parenthood's position that it's a woman's choice, as opposed to saying, no, it's murder? I think that's the failure of the pro-life movement, is they've been so focused on playing this political game that they've bought into the pro-choice's story that Planned Parenthood is more than happy to have us talk about.

Planned Parenthood is very happy when we refuse to say that abortion is murder. That's the last thing they want to have to deal with. Because if abortion is actually murder, then there has to be a law that stops it.

Speaking the Truth Boldly Against Planned Parenthood

And that's what we have to do. We have to change the conversation. And we did. So this is, I almost get kind of tears looking, I see this. This is Planned Parenthood's marketing campaign now. They hang these signs outside of their building that says health care happens here.

They're responding to a video on YouTube that has less than 100 ,000 views now. And all I did was say the truth. Babies are murdered here. A multi-billion dollar organization like Planned Parenthood is responding to a guy who raised $5 ,000 over the course of an entire year to make a film in which all the money was spent on travel and plane tickets.

That's the power of having guts. That's the power of speaking the truth and being bold. It is our world that we are on right now. Those who are unbelievers are visitors. But for those who are heirs to the king, it is ours.

And we control the conversation of this world. We tell the stories. We tell the truth. We do not give in to their lies about our position. We do not submit to their desires on how we have this conversation.

Babies are dying. Babies are being murdered. And we need to make sure that we take bold and radical moves to make sure that we continue the conversation, that we continue to tell the story. And I'll end with a quote from a great storyteller, C .S. Lewis.

He says in the screw tape letters, Indeed the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones and without signposts. I would like to ask any members of the pro-life movement, any of the major players, I'd like to ask them what their mileposts are.

Because after 43 years, they are not the ones who have been controlling the conversation. They have not been the ones who have been telling the stories. But Planned Parenthood sure has. Everybody sees Planned Parenthood as a healthcare issue because they've controlled the conversation.

And so I'd like to end it there. And I'd like to ask everybody to control the conversation, to change the conversation, and to tell the story in a way that is honoring to God and not weak. And so one more thing.

We must fear, we must not fear the judges who wear black robes. But we need to fear the one who wears white.